(a sermon for st Lukes 25th Aug 2024 from Eph 6.10-20
Have you come across the prayer of St Patrick’s Breastplate? I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity … God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s hand to guard me, God’s shield to protect me, Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, … Its quite a lot longer than that but a worthy exercise to take up in daily prayer.
God wants you to be Strong. He wants you to still be Standing all through lifes ups and downs, for you to know that your faith is holding you together, that your faith is holding you close to Jesus, all the way through this troublous life.
So God has given to you and me a bunch of things and we need to make sure that we’re never very far from them, that we remember that we have them.
When we forget, then our faith gets depressed, our courage fails us, we can get angry – perhaps at other people for their failings and hypocrisy, or we can internalise that hurt instead.
In John’s gospel we hear about the importance of Eating Jesus. On the one hand we’re about to do that in the Eucharist. So its understandable that through the lens of history we might hear Jesus giving us a high doctrine of Holy Communion. Ok for a moment go with it. Yes as you come to receive the bread and the wine, I want you to be taking this moment as a full on prayer ministry moment, here in this small wafer and sip of wine, you are encountering the God who loves you and gave Himself for you, and calls you, and is pouring His love into your hearts.
The language that John uses here is more about Manna than it is about Passover Lamb though you can find that also in John’s Gospel. But here we are invited to make a parallel between Jesus and the Manna – a gift of God from heaven – a daily miracle – something to collect and consume on a daily basis, something not to take for granted. Here is a symbol of freedom from slavery, here is food that we need for our pilgrimage, our journey towards the promised land.
The manna symbolism is the reminder that each day we need to connect to Jesus. So Daily in prayer, Daily in dipping into your bible, Daily in connecting with someone in the Church family, either to check in on them or to let them check in on you – how are you doing?
We need this connection to keep us strong through the day, through the week. Someone on the way out of Church one Sunday said to me – That was a great sermon, great worship, that should get me to about Wednesday. I took it as a kind compliment, but if I had been a little quicker I should have said something about Not forgetting to feed on Christ each day. A little bit of worship, a song on your heart, it will carry you through the week.
St Paul’s language is less about eating Jesus and more about Wearing Him. Wearing the Truth, wearing His Righteousness, wearing His Peace –
You do have all this kit. You do already have it. St Paul is not telling you how to earn it or where to keep it, but simply to Put it on. To keep wearing it. Because our Faith in Jesus really does help.
It helps when we see something on-line and it might seem funny in our old school sense of humour, but we might also think – its probably not funny today – things have moved on, I wonder if it may cause hurt through some misunderstanding – Social Media is a disastrous place where you can get very lost in pointless discussions with people who just want to see if they can get you riled.
Its very tiring but it takes a little strength to walk away. The belt of truth might help hold you together, and see through the pretence of whatever you’re being goaded into joining in with. Don’t. Its not worth it.
So we strengthen ourselves through being Right with God, keeping short accounts with God in repentance and forgiveness, and likewise in keeping short accounts with others in how we pay them, treat them, making sure that those who need to know know that we love them. I’ve taken too many funerals where people don’t remember the last time they said to their friend – Love you! Thank you, Bless you. Something good and encouraging.
And Peace – so elusive. How will Putin ever get to a point of saying ‘Let’s stop this war’? How will Hamas and Israel find a way to stop their war? And even then a cessation of fighting isn’t peace. There’s so much to rebuild and repair. How will those Communities in Britain repair from the damage and the hurt and the distrust that has been caused recently?
St Paul would say that Prayer is a big part of it. Praying for healing, unity, peace, that will be an important place to start. But then more than that will be needed. Perhaps there’s something in the analogy here with the Shoes, ‘feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace’. Jackie Pullinger said We need hard feet and soft hearts. Hard feet and soft hearts. Not the other way round. Hard feet because they have become hardened by all the walking and go to other people and blessing them and being with them. So hard feet. And Soft hearts because so often when you do engage with someone you see the humanity and the love.
I was glad to hear the news reporting of a brave mosque that took cake out to the crowd that were aggressively negatively chanting. I think it was in Nottingham, I think they took out Victoria Sponge cake. There is courage. That’s a powerful way to confront hate. I hope it helped. Perhaps there’s a lesson there for us to be learning.
God gives to us His Faith, sometimes we see it as a seed, here as a Shield. You do have this faith, you do have this shield. It does protect you. What disturbs me most about this reading from Ephesians is the word When. When the day of evil comes. When.
Pick up the shield of faith so you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. It means you, we, are being shot at. Probably for us it’s not a single big thing, a moment of persecution. More likely it will be all sorts of little things, niggles and doubts and struggles, that leave you and your faith barely clinging on.
When you watch the news – that can be really depressing. So I suggest limiting yourself to how much you tune into the news. Over Covid I found myself wanting to hear every bit of news in case there was a new ruling about Church, worship, singing, weddings, funerals, so I was constantly watching. And it was exhausting. So pace yourself.
But then what I want you to be doing as you do watch it is to be praying. Pray a little prayer for the Government official who has been asked to read a new policy out – you wouldn’t want to do it in front of all those cameras! Pray for the Police Inspector as they explain to the journalists what they are trying to do in this sad situation. Pray for the local Church, and the local vicar, when you hear about disasters. Pray for angels and little miracles for those who find themselves in a tragedy. Pray for the journalists and their integrity and safety.
And when its you feeling got at then remember your faith. This shield of faith helps you to remember that actually your enemy is not the person standing in front of you telling you that Jesus is all made up, that Church is full of hypocrites, that religion just makes wars and all that nonsense – he’s not your enemy – but the lies and hurt and hate that fuels this person’s need to vent at you – that’s the enemy – that is who you pray against, whilst praying love and peace and freedom upon the person who is having a go. It is not easy. I know that I have got this wrong plenty of times. It takes practice. It helps if you can laugh at yourself a little. It helps if you can keep praying.
When we get hurt, we get angry, you may even think that your anger is righteous anger! And that leads to a bad decision, a lashing out, when what is needed is the shield of faith, to protect you, to remind you of God’s healing power, of God’s forgiveness that you have received and so you extinguish the enemies’ arrows by faith, by noticing that they have no power over you because the love of Jesus is so much more than the hate and hurt of others.
So you keep praying. I love that St Paul asked the Ephesians to pray for him, even though he is in prison, not to pray for freedom, but to pray for courage to speak to Gospel. Even St Paul needed prayer. Even you do, even I do. Its good when we can ask each other for help in prayer. As we pray we connect to God, and that keeps us mindful of His Salvation, of the helmet – as Paul puts it here – or earlier in Ephesians he wrote about the Seal– how we were marked in Jesus with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit – and this seal helps remind us that we belong here.
Jesus said in that Gospel reading – No one comes to me unless the Father has enabled them. So if you’re here today, then that’s good news, it means that God is glad you’re here, God is enabling you to grow in faith, giving you this armour, inviting you to be constantly connected to God through prayer, through daily eating and drinking in Jesus,
Take up this gift of God, this armour, this faith, this call to prayer, put it on each morning, and you will find that you can stand through all that life throws at you.
Amen.
photo is of belt of truth?